and other updates
I mentioned it last time but work really has been eating up my time. That and illness, but we’ll get to that topic later.
First up – let’s recap Halloween for my kiddos! Little bao wanted to be a mermaid, which was a super easy request (just que up Amazon and type in “mermaid costume” then sift through the thousands of results). I ordered her costume in September and patted myself on the back. The dumpling, however, his request was more involved. You see, he wanted to be Gyutaro, Upper Moon Six, from Demon Slayer. And the thing is, you can’t just go onto Amazon, type in Gyutaro, and get hundreds (or even dozens) of results. I kept joking with anyone who asked that the downside of his choice was that no one knows who Gyutaro is and thus I couldn’t just buy a ready-made costume but that the upside of his choice was that no one knows who Gyutaro is and thus I could cobble together my best attempt because no one was going to recognize him no matter how authentic I made it.
And so! For his costume, I focused on the pants (a harem pant-type thing) and the hair (for which, I actually did find an accurate wig for a decent price). He already had the blood blades, which I’m just now realizing I should probably be slightly embarrassed about considering that he’s eight. I bought a flesh-toned shirt and eventually made it to the fabric store for materials to make the arm bands and collar. Of course, I didn’t actually put together those items until 3:00 on Halloween – details details. It all came together in the end though and he enjoyed wearing his costume. For all of thirty minutes anyway as he promptly discarded the wig and collar during his Roblox-break from trick-or-treating.
This year, I stayed home and passed out candy since I was still recovering from being sick. The dumpling went with his neighbor friend. Luffy took little bao over to her bestie’s house for trick-or-treating. In the hour between them leaving and our first trick-or-treater arriving, the house was quiet and solemn and I missed my little bunch.
They had a blast though. Even with his Roblox break, the dumpling came away with three bucketful’s of candy. Little bao called it a night after filling her bucket halfway, returning to the house to gleefully and precisely pass out candy (as we were nearing the end of the night and I just wanted this candy gone, I tried my best to convince her to give out more than just one piece at a time but she wouldn’t budge). (She also only passed out the dum dums, I think because they’re her favorite, though I’m sure the teenagers would have preferred the Sour Patch Kids.) They each had a piece from their spoils before getting into bed on the late side, but that’s the fun of Halloween right?
In other, not so fun news, let’s discuss this “illness” that I keep mentioning. I truly think it started with my surgery, that caused increased post-nasal drip and all of that drip somehow ended up in my lungs. I say this because I started coughing, a dry, sporadic cough, about ten days after my surgery despite never feeling “sick”. This cough never went away and eventually got worse and worse until it was waking me up at night, all night. I took myself in to see my allergist and came away with an inhaler and an antibiotic, which has helped tremendously, but my sinuses can never feel left out of the spotlight. They’ve been threatening an infection for the past week, with inflammation and spots of colored mucous. I am doing my best to keep the infection at bay through sinus rinses (and you’d think that antibiotic would do some help, but it wasn’t my go-to antibiotic for sinus infections so that wasn’t promising).
It’s been a lot to deal with – all on top of trying to recuperate from my surgery itself. I am hoping that the worst is behind me but a thunderstorm moved through the area this past Sunday and my wheeze came back and my sinuses flared up, all leaving me to think that perhaps I’m not quite out of the woods yet.
Little bao is also on antibiotics right now. Two Sundays ago, I was getting ready to take myself to bed, when she appeared in the kitchen, which is always a bad sign. She was in tears because her ear hurt, that poor girl. I immediately gave her Motrin, once again rejoicing that she’s finally – FINALLY! – in the next weight bracket and can take a larger dose. She was in so much pain though that she was having a hard time settling. At one point, she told me that she “needed it to be morning” so that we could go to the doctor. I rubbed her back and soothed her as best I could, distraught because I could no longer snuggle her to my chest like I could when they were sick as babies. I tried, but she was too long. She finally settled back to sleep about a half-hour after waking. We of course went to the doctor the first chance we could Monday morning and she came away with an ear infection diagnosis and a prescription for amoxicillin.
SPEAKING OF BABIES!!!!
Our NY friends were in town for the weekend, to celebrate a family member’s nuptials. They had asked me while we were visiting in July if I’d be willing to watch their daughter for them, as the reception was firmly no-kids-allowed. I didn’t even check what I’d be doing in November before accepting and probably squealing with joy.
That’s how I found myself with an extra child in the house overnight on Saturday. A five and a half month old, no less. She was the perfect unicorn baby that she was back in July so all went well. I did have to chuckle because the husband had previously reached out to Luffy to chat about how to deal with them fussing at bedtime and yet, compared to my children, she was practically magical. I truly just laid her down and left. She needed resettling a couple of times but the first involved putting her pacifier back in (twice) and the second involved me picking her up to experiment with more involved soothing techniques but she let out a huge burp as soon as I lifted her to my shoulder so I just set her back down and she was out again. She slept until 6:30 (which was really 7:30, thanks to daylight savings time) and was happy to see me when I got her. The most she ever fussed was when I had the audacity to wipe her nose, which mostly made me laugh because boy did that bring back memories.
As easy as she was, I was happy to pass her back to her parents at the end of our time together. I had forgotten how hands-on that age is, even for a happy baby. She’d lie on the floor, entertained by my kids or her feet or fabric, but only for so long. After that, she wanted to sit up! But she can’t sit unassisted yet, so that meant I was holding her. Or at least supporting her. I had completely forgotten how little things like taking care of myself would be difficult to do. I couldn’t run the dog outside because I had the baby (and, in our case, we wanted to keep them separated as much as possible, though this would obviously change if it were our hypothetical baby). I couldn’t just go do my sinus rinse. I had one ear open for her and one eye on the clock at all times, listening for the sounds of an upset baby and calculating the time until her next scheduled nap/bottle/diaper change.
So while I was happy to pass her back, little bao was sad to see her go. She was positively thrilled to have a baby in the house and even helped out by feeding her and holding her (with my supervision, obviously). She had already asked me for another baby (lol, nope!) so I thought she would ask me again once this baby left. She didn’t, though she did ask me to color with her. I think she missed my undivided attention.
Musings of Belle 